Book Review: Accelerated C# 2005
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Hands down my favorite C# book this year. This book is not an introduction to C#. It is not a “bible” nor is it a “cookbook of C# recopies. Accelerated C# 2005 by Trey Nash is a concise map that navigated this reader safely (and enjoyably) through C# territory. Nash is an excellent guide, providing relevant information in a clear, easy-to-understand style.
At 400 pages, this is very succinct for a “computer book”. Of all the C# books I have read in the past year, this one has helped me most in improving my C# knowledge. This is one a small handful of .NET that I have read, and then not put back on my shelf. This one I keep at my desk.
This book is best for intermediate C# programmers (or enthusiastic beginners). It is also a great reference for more seasoned .NET veterans. In my opinion this book lies somewhere between A Programmer’s Introduction to C# 2.0 and Professional C# 2005 and the .NET 2.0 Platform. |
The former is perfect for anyone without object oriented programming (OOP) experience. The latter is a hardcover tome geared toward advanced OOP developers. There is one other group that might enjoy this book -- Java developers. If you are moving from Java to the C# language, this book can help quickly bring you up to speed.
For me, Accelerated C# 2005 was like having my own “personal coding trainer”. Just as one might go to personal fitness trainer to improve physical fitness, a serious programmer can turn to this book in order to crank up his C# skills. To illustrate my point, I have listed the approximate number of pages per chapter. Just take a look below to get a feel for where you will bulk up your knowledge.
The author gave this reader more bulk where I wanted it. Notice that subjects such as Overloading Operators, Strings and Canonical forms all get their own chapters. I found this unique structure very digestible.
There are several C# features that I have personally been looking to improve upon.
+ Generics
+ Delegates
+ Multi-threading (threading)
Again going back to the book’s excellent structure, each of these subjects is presented in its own easy-to-digest chapter. Plus they are all custom sized to fit subject at hand. Notice how the threading chapter is twice as long as the delegate chapter.
At just under 400 pages, I knew there would be no room for fluff. Nash did not disappoint me. This book rocks! If you are interested in accelerating your C# knowledge, I highly recommend this book.
CHAPTERS
- C# Preview (5 pages)
- C# and the CLR (5 pages)
- C# Syntax Overview (16 pages)
- Classes Structs and Objects (70 pages)
- Interfaces and Contracts (25 pages)
- Overloading Operators (12 pages)
- Exception Handling and Exception Safety (28 pages)
- Working with Strings (22 pages)
- Arrays, Collection Types and Iterators (26 pages)
- Delegates, Anonymous Functions and Events (22 pages)
- Generics (35 pages)
- Threading in C# (42 pages)
- In Search of C# Canonical Forms (50 pages)
APPENDIX
INDEX